


What We Know

by danahid



Series: The Things You See [5]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Kirk's reading glasses, Leadership, POV First Person Plural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 12:37:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1173159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danahid/pseuds/danahid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No man is a leader until his appointment is ratified in the hearts and minds of his crew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What We Know

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to [Livejournal](http://danahid.livejournal.com/23722.html) in June 2010. Written before _Star Trek Into Darkness_ (which means that Pike is alive). Also, when this story was originally published, I called Cupcake "Matthews." To re-post on AO3, I've corrected his name to Hendorff, given that's what he's called in _STID._ I probably should have/could have made other edits to comply with _STID,_ but I didn't want to (literally) re-write history. Apologies for any confusion.

 

_No man is a leader until his appointment is ratified in the minds and hearts of his crew.  
—  Military Review, 1980, as quoted in Starfleet Annual, 2262_

 

When Jim Kirk was given command of the _Enterprise,_ a lot of the crew were convinced it was a publicity stunt. Some grumbled about it, but most shrugged it off with the kind of cynicism that had more to do with post-traumatic stress than either interest or indifference. There were a few who decided they couldn’t live with some jumped-up golden boy barely out of diapers telling them what to do for the next five years. They were a minority, and we weren’t surprised when they requested transfer to other ships. 

The rest of us shipped out under the youngest captain in Federation history. It’s fair to say that most of us had reservations about the Admiralty’s decision. We told each other we were willing to wait and see, but what we were really thinking was that we had worked too hard for our postings to give them up. Captain Pike had handpicked us. We were his crew. We were here first.

_Cadet_ Kirk had a lot to live up to.

*

We’d all heard stories about what Kirk was like before he became captain of the flagship. His reputation preceded him. There were whispers about childhood delinquency, criminal misdemeanors, amorous exploits, academic cheating. Our perception of him was set even before he stowed away on the _Enterprise._

None of us could agree on when that perception started to change. Lieutenant Hannity claimed it started before he was officially named captain. She said it happened for her the first time she laid eyes on him, when he threw himself on to the bridge, followed closely by McCoy and Uhura, and demanded Captain Pike listen to him. He confronted Pike and Spock with facts and intuition, arguing his point of view until even the Vulcan acceded to his logic. It was the first time she glimpsed Kirk’s unique genius, Hannity said; the first time she understood his ability to connect disparate facts into a critical, systemic hypothesis; the first time she witnessed his particular brand of persuasion. When he was proved right, his reasoning horribly validated but the _Enterprise_ at least spared the fate of her sister ships, Hannity concluded that there was more to Cadet Kirk than she had initially assumed. 

The rest of us were not so willing to abandon our assumptions. 

*

There were as many opinions about Starfleet’s newly minted hero as there were crewmen on the _Enterprise._ Opinion jostled with rumor in the corridors and turbolifts. Some of the younger enlisted personnel got caught up in it, but most of us were too focused on completing the performance tests that hadn’t been done on our abortive shakedown cruise.

Our brand-new captain gave us space to do our work. Whenever one of us ran into him, which we did surprisingly often, he would ask questions, but never so many that he disrupted the flow of whatever we were doing. It wasn’t unusual for him to stand and watch for a few minutes. Occasionally he would offer a suggestion, but more often he said nothing, just nodded, murmuring “as you were,” then moving along.

None of us knew what to make of his behavior. Because of the rumor mill, it was easy to attach negative motivations to everything Kirk did or didn’t do. New rumors sprang up constantly: He was checking up on us, he didn’t trust us, he was fishing for compliments on his appearance, he was looking for his next lay, he was too lazy to do his own job, he had no idea how to do his job, he was looking for pointers, he was looking for something to do, he was a nosy jerk, he was hatching a plan to take over Starfleet and the Federation. 

It didn’t occur to us until later that he needed to familiarize himself with his new role and ship as much as we did. 

Sometimes the most likely explanations are the easiest to overlook, and sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to figure out. 

*

Sometimes the hardest things are just plain hard to figure out. 

When we started our five-year mission, we couldn’t figure out the puzzle that was James T. Kirk, but we didn’t try very hard either. We were quick to dismiss the pieces that didn’t fit our preconceived picture. We protected our assumptions. We believed rumors. We felt justified in our skepticism. We told ourselves _there is never smoke without fire,_ and we pointed to his rap sheet, and we were absolutely sure we were right about him.

It took the most unlikely person on-board to shake our certainty.

We called it the Cupcake Incident after it happened. It started with a sparring session in the main gym after an away mission. Kirk and Lieutenant Hendorff had been at it for a while, circling each other cautiously, bouncing on their toes, swaying from side to side, striking out with graceful kicks and sweeps before dancing away again. 

A crowd of us had gathered to watch them. We admired the lethal beauty of their movements. We envied their skill. We were confused by their conversation.

“Listen, Tom,” Kirk was saying as he countered one of Hendorff’s more effective attacks, “you can’t blame yourself for what happened down there.”

Hendorff stepped back, wiping perspiration off his forehead. 

“It wasn’t your fault we lost Juarez.” Kirk scooped up a towel and handed it to the security officer. “What we need to do is— We need to figure out what happened so it doesn’t happen again—” Kirk paused and his hands dropped to his sides— “as much as we can anyway.”

We didn’t hear Hendorff’s reply. We pretended we weren’t trying to hear the end of their conversation as we watched them strip off gloves and pick up water bottles. We pretended we were busy with other conversations and other exercise routines, pretended we were looking the other way when Kirk clapped Hendorff on the shoulder as they headed to the changing rooms, pretended we didn’t hear Kirk ask: “So, how’s Katie doing? When’s she due again?”

Without exception, everyone who witnessed or heard about the Cupcake Incident was surprised by it. Reactions ranged from “Wasn’t Kirk the guy who nicknamed Hendorff ‘Cupcake’ in the first place?” to “I thought they couldn’t stand each other?” to “They fucking hate each other, man, no way that happened,” to “So, not only does Kirk know Lieutenant Hendorff’s first name, he also knows Hendorff’s wife’s name?” to “I didn’t know you could use the gym for sparring on Tuesdays.” 

Months later, despite their regular sparring sessions and several notable occasions of Hendorff’s demonstrating he was Kirk’s staunchest defender apart from McCoy, we still figured it was a family name when Hendorff passed around holophotos of his newborn son, Jim.

Sometimes the hardest things to see are the things right in front of you.

*

When we left Earth spacedock, we saw only what we wanted to see. Then the Cupcake Incident happened, and we realized we’d been missing all sorts of things. 

We realized that Kirk not only knew Cupcake’s name, he knew _every_ crewman’s name. He could attach 410 names to 410 faces within a few months of our shipping out. He could name wives, husbands, partners, children, parents, sometimes even cousins. He knew and remembered who we were, and whenever he met one of us anywhere on the ship, he was able to ask as many questions about what was going on in our lives as he could about our current assignments and duties.

Some of the crew dismissed it as rote memorization of our personnel files, something Commander Spock had accomplished before he set foot on the bridge as First Officer. But Kirk was _Human,_ like so many of us, without a Vulcan eidetic memory. 

More than a few of us were impressed in spite of ourselves.

*

We also realized that studying our personnel files was only the first step in Kirk’s plan, even if we weren’t sure what his plan was. Clearly, matching faces and names and assignments didn’t tell him everything he wanted to know. 

Kirk began crew interviews about a month out of spacedock. By the end of his first six months as captain of the _Enterprise,_ he had interviewed every single crewman on-board, meeting with five crewmen a day in the small office attached to his quarters. 

He started every interview by thanking us for sitting down with him and explaining that he wanted to meet with everyone because he wanted to share his expectations, but more than that, he wanted to get to know his crew. Then he started asking questions. He asked about where we were from. He asked about who we left back home. He asked about hometowns and home situations. He asked detailed questions about our experiences on the _Enterprise_ and in Starfleet. He asked about what we liked the most, what we liked the least, and what we wanted to change. He asked about what we wanted for our careers, and what our goals were for the future. He asked every single one of us why we joined Starfleet. He ended every interview by repeating his thanks with a firm handshake and a promise that we would build the best damn ship in the ’Fleet together.

When we compared notes about the interviews afterwards, we didn’t talk about the questions he asked or what we answered. We talked about what we had learned about him, which we realized was remarkably little. In all our interviews, Kirk had said nothing about himself, hadn’t tried to dispel our skepticism, hadn’t tried to win us over with sharing, confiding smiles.

In every single interview, all he did was ask thoughtful questions, listen carefully, and take notes. 

We didn’t admit it out loud, but most of us found his seriousness reassuring. 

*

When we started our five-year mission, we were sure we knew what to expect from our brand-new captain. We didn’t know then that Jim Kirk specialized in not living up (or down) to anyone’s expectations.

First the Cupcake Incident, then the crew interviews, dismantled our expectations.

Kirk’s office did, too.

Before his crew interviews, most of us had never been inside a commanding officer’s cabin. Whatever we expected, Kirk’s office wasn’t it. His office was surprisingly neat, with books and datapads stacked carefully on bookshelves, and few if any personal effects. The door to his private sleeping quarters was firmly closed, and the only mess in the room was on his desk, which was covered with datapads, styluses, old-fashioned pens and pencils, and honest-to-God pulp paper. It was the desk of someone who actually worked.

When we were comparing notes about the interviews afterwards, none of us talked about Kirk’s desk, but we had all noticed it. Ensign Muskovitz was the only one who ever mentioned it. “Hey,” Mouse said in the mess one day, as if he’d been thinking about it for a long time, “I didn’t know the captain wore reading glasses, did you?”

It was true that none of us knew Kirk wore reading glasses until we saw them perched on a pile of papers in a corner of his messy desk.

*

We spent a lot of time in the ship’s canteen, dissecting Kirk’s behavior. At some point in the first year of his assuming command of the _Enterprise,_ we switched from a “wait and see” attitude to an active campaign of figuring him out. Because he kept surprising us (something many of us thought he took pleasure in doing), figuring him out felt like trying to hit a moving target.

One of the most difficult-to-dissect episodes actually took place in the mess.

Mediator Dunlu had embarked at Starbase 12. The _Enterprise_ had been asked to deliver him to trade talks on Gemaris V. It was a routine request, even if Dunlu was anything but a routine passenger. He was difficult and demanding. He was critical of everything on the _Enterprise._ He made no effort to hide his dissatisfaction. 

Kirk and Spock were in the mess on the day Dunlu chose to berate Mr Stevens, the canteen manager, about “the subpar meal offerings on this vessel and the subpar crew who work in the kitchen and this mess of a—”

Kirk pulled Dunlu away before he could finish his tirade. 

“Mediator Dunlu, a word?” It wasn’t a question, even if was framed as one, and Kirk was too angry to keep his voice down. We hadn’t realized until that moment that we’d never seen Kirk really angry before.

We pretended we weren’t listening to Kirk rebuke Dunlu, but of course we were.

“You may not know this, Dunlu,” Kirk was saying, his voice hard, “but 50% of the _Enterprise’s_ crew enlisted because their families couldn’t afford college. Almost 30% enlisted to get away from bad situations at home. One member of the crew watched her parents murdered in a pirate raid on her colony when she was a child. She was ripped from her home and what little family she had left, and raised by a distant relative on another colony, who sent her off to fend for herself as soon as she was sixteen. Another crewman grew up in a gang-ravaged neighborhood where phaser-fire whistled over his head at night. His mother made him sleep in the bathtub so he wouldn’t be killed by accident. Another was the child of immigrants, who arrived on Earth with nothing and worked every job possible to create a better future for their fourteen children. Another was born a sex slave, and bought and sold four times before she was thirteen—”

Kirk stopped, his eyes fierce and bleak, his arms stiff at his sides. We watched him take a deep breath, then straighten the hem of his gold shirt. He seemed to tower over Dunlu. “Every single person on this ship is a volunteer. Every single person is working hard to make something meaningful out of their lives. Every single person has earned his or her position on Starfleet’s flagship. They are the best of the best, Dunlu: the best scientists, the best xenolinguists, the best xenoanthropologists, the best diplomats, the best cultural experts, the best doctors, the best nurses, the best engineers, the best programmers, the best maintenance staff, the best security staff, and the absolute best kitchen staff in Starfleet. They have experience and expertise. They have duty-specific certifications and advanced degrees from prestigious institutions. Most have graduated at the top of their classes; many have published in the best journals. They are dedicated, innovative, courageous explorers. They are all good, hard-working beings, representing the diversity and strength of the Federation. They deserve our respect and admiration.” He leaned forward, his face set in tight, bright lines. “They are not nameless bodies for you to bark at. I don’t know who you think you are, but you can’t talk to my crew like that. No one on this ship deserves—”

“Captain,” Commander Spock murmured, raising an eyebrow.

Kirk stopped suddenly, accepting Spock’s interruption for what it was. He took another deep breath and switched gears, offering Dunlu a professional Starfleet Captain smile, and beginning again, as if he hadn't just been in the middle of a rant: “Mediator Dunlu, the _Enterprise_ has arrived at Gemaris V. Your counterpart mediator is waiting for your beam-down to begin the trade talks.” He glanced at Spock, a look that was equal parts apology and residual anger. Spock tilted his head fractionally, which seemed to be the response Kirk was looking for.

Kirk glared down at Dunlu, who shrank back from the look in his eyes. “For the Federation’s sake, we hope your negotiations are successful,” Kirk said coldly. “For our sake, we hope you get another ride home.” He nodded to the security officer standing near the door. “Mr Hendorff, get him off my ship.” 

Hendorff snapped off a salute. “Gladly, sir.” 

There was near-silence in the mess as we watched Cupcake lead the sputtering bureaucrat to the Transporter Room. For the first time, we understood why Hendorff was so sure he would follow Jim Kirk anywhere.

*

The Canteen Incident was the topic of many subsequent mess conversations. We weighed it against what we thought we knew about Kirk in the beginning. We considered it in the light of what we thought we learned from the Cupcake Incident and the crew interviews and every time he surprised us. We were beginning to accept that the various incidents and events were not isolated. They were part of a trend.

It was a trend that included the Usslifian Flu Incident.

When Lieutenant Uhura, most of the Communications department, and large swathes of the crew came down with Usslifian Flu, Kirk pitched in with the rest of us to fill empty duty rosters. There was no job he was unwilling to do. He even filled in at the communications console on the bridge, completely shocking Admiral Pike, who didn’t expect his flagship’s captain to be, as Pike put it, “answering his own phone.” 

Answering hails from headquarters was only a small part of communications, and Kirk attempted to stay on top of all of it. He was a talented programmer, and he was fluent in more languages than any of us had realized — Ensign Ahlee reminded us that he had been treasurer of the Xenolinguistics Club at the Academy and that we shouldn’t have been surprised — but he was a terrible communications officer. He clearly disliked having to remember the different routing procedures, got frustrated easily by protocol, and was the first to admit that diplomacy had never been his strong point. While Uhura was on medical leave, ship communications languished in cheerful disarray, despite (or perhaps because of) the programming improvements Kirk couldn’t resist implementing. 

Ahlee had been assigned to the bridge during the Flu Incident, and she told us what happened when Uhura returned to her post:

Uhura tapped Kirk on the shoulder and said, “I can relieve you, Captain,” and Kirk stood up so quickly he almost toppled out of his chair. 

“Lieutenant Uhura,” he grinned, “I am so relieved you have no idea.” He sounded so heartfelt, Ahlee said, that most of the bridge crew started laughing. 

After the humor had died down and everyone was back at their stations, Mr Spock stepped across the bridge to ask Uhura how she was feeling. Spock thanked her for returning to the bridge when she might have remained off-duty, and Uhura smiled her glorious smile and said, “I figured I was needed up here.”

“You were indeed missed,” Spock said, inclining his head in agreement. “There are many tasks at which the Captain is proficient. Managing the intricacies of communications on-board a Federation starship is not one of them.”

Ahlee said they all laughed at that, Kirk loudest of all.

Ahlee’s report wound its way from the mess through the corridors and labs and common areas of the _Enterprise._ There were new whispers about Kirk, a growing approval of his cheerful, hardworking demeanor, a growing admiration for a superior officer who didn’t trade on his rank at all.

*

Some of us decided the Flu Incident was when our perceptions of Kirk truly started to change. Others argued that our perceptions and attitudes had been changing all along. They argued that Kirk was the same person he’d always been. We just saw him more clearly now.

Their theory was put to the test by the Engineering Incident.

We weren’t back at full complement when it happened. Scotty was down several engineers, and he needed someone who could wriggle into Jefferies tubes, rewire conduits, and reprogram consoles. Ensign Chekov was the obvious candidate, but he was still in sickbay with the flu. Kirk was Scotty’s second choice. 

“The cap’n cannae be a worse engineer than he is a communications officer,” Scotty said sagely. 

“Hey, I heard that!” Kirk protested, looking up from the conduit maps he was studying. “I qualified for a secondary concentration in engineering, you know.”

“Aye, laddie,” Scotty agreed dismissively, already distracted by the data on the console in front of him. He waved a spanner at the smoking Jefferies tube. “That’s the problem there. She’s not bad yet, but she’ll get a lot worse if we don’ fix her soon. The wiring that needs looking at is at the elbow down that way. You’ll need to be flexible to get to it.”

“I am pretty flexible, it’s true,” Kirk said as he peered at the console over Scotty’s shoulder. His flirtatious statement was completely undermined by the thoughtful, preoccupied look on his face. It was clear to us that he had spoken absently, out of some reflexive need to live up to his reputation as a playboy, or perhaps he was already calculating the best way to wriggle into the problematic Jefferies tube, already memorizing the most efficient route to the smoldering wires. It didn’t occur to us until later that he might have been aware of the tired, tense faces around him, that he might have been trying to ease the strain and anxiety in the room.

Kirk and Scotty conferred for a few minutes more, then agreed on their plan, and Kirk disappeared into the Jefferies tube. For more than ten minutes, we heard nothing from him, despite his promise to stay in radio contact. 

Scotty was trying to raise Kirk on his communicator when we discovered two new fires, one of which was verging out of control. 

Commander Spock arrived just when we needed him, which was something we had already begun to expect from our First Officer. While we were firefighting, he took over trying to reestablish communication with Kirk. “Spock to Captain Kirk. Do you read, sir?”

There was a loud burst of static, then: “I’m here, Spock. Bashed my communicator a couple of turns back. It’s acting weird, keeps dropping the signal—”

“Captain, if you can hear me, I have been studying the conduit map, and I believe I have found a solution. Can you reach AB4 to reroute the wiring from K3?”

“Working on it, Spock,” was the muffled response. 

Spock and Kirk wrestled with the wiring problem while we worked to get the fires under control, and Kirk crawled out the tube about ten minutes after we put the fires out. His shirt was torn, his face smudged and scratched. There was a bruise high on his cheekbone already turning colors. 

He assessed the situation in the Engine Room at a glance, taking in the chaos of equipment, the remnants of flame dispersant, our sooty and exhausted faces. “Great work, guys,” he beamed. “Looks like it could’ve been touch-and-go, but you got it under control in time.” 

Spock agreed that everyone had performed admirably. “As for you, Captain,” Spock said as he handed Kirk something to wipe his face, “your efforts were adequate.”

Kirk blinked, then huffed out a laugh. “Ah, you love me, Spock,” he said, slapping the First Officer’s shoulder. 

Spock’s eyebrow shot up in response, although it might also have been amusement.

That was when the rest of us realized Spock had been teasing.

And that, apparently, Kirk had won over his Vulcan First Officer, too.

*

Reports about the Engineering Incident spread across the _Enterprise_ faster than the Usslifian Flu. It was all over the ship by gamma shift. 

The new whispers and stories about Kirk revived interest in older stories. More than ever, we wanted to figure out who James T. Kirk was. We wanted to understand what made him tick and how he got to be the way he was.

We’d all heard rumors about Kirk’s childhood. Some of us had heard that he grew up wild, running barefoot through the green cornstalks of the Great American Midwest. Others had heard that he was on Tarsus and that he was on the wrong list. Many of us had heard that his childhood was more ordinary than tragic, that his mother ignored him and his brother left him behind, but it was benign neglect more than anything else. Almost all of us had heard the most persistent rumor, that he had been beaten by his stepfather. 

Nurse Singh scowled when she heard us discussing that particular rumor in the mess. Nazreen Singh was one of the newest medical staff, young and impressionable. When we prodded her for information, she refused to confirm or deny anything, and she held firm in her refusal until finally, under pressure, she admitted that she’d also seen cigarette burn scars on his back. “There are other signs, too,” she said quietly, looking sick with pity and grief.

It was hard for us to imagine Kirk being victimized by anything, but before we could dig deeper, Nazreen got up abruptly and left the mess. We watched her go, then turned back to dissecting our newest information. Now that we knew some of the rumors were true, we figured others were as well. 

We must have been right, because McCoy stormed into the mess not long after Nazreen left. He slammed a hypospray on the table in front of us, growling: “I will inject every last one of you with Mudvaren flea vaccine if y’all keep going around gossiping about your commanding officer.” 

Spock loomed behind McCoy, fearsomely straight and still. He said nothing, but we saw the anger burning in his eyes, and we knew beyond a doubt that he and the doctor were in absolute agreement.

If there were any of us who remained unconvinced that our new captain was a man who inspired deep friendship and unshakeable loyalty, their numbers were dwindling. 

*

We sat in the mess after McCoy and Spock left and realized what we already knew. McCoy risked his career to smuggle Kirk on to the _Enterprise._ Spock chose Kirk over the needs of his endangered species, choosing to stand as his First Officer on the _Enterprise_ instead of working to rebuild Vulcan society. 

We realized that McCoy, Spock, and Hendorff would follow Kirk anywhere. 

Many of us began to think that we would, too. 

*

The stories about Kirk were different after that. They became stories about what we knew, not what we guessed or supposed or imagined.

Before we left Earth, we knew a lot about our new captain. Because of the _Narada_ Incident, we knew that he could think fast on his feet, that he didn’t panic in a crisis, that he could calculate risks and consequences in a split-second, and then act with authority in our best interests. We knew he listened to other people’s ideas, and that he was unafraid to try innovative solutions. We knew he would stick to his guns if he thought he was right. We knew he could make a Vulcan lose his temper. We knew he was physically tough, and surprisingly compassionate. We knew he could be a stubborn bastard. 

When we began our five-year mission, we learned new things about him. Because we worked beside him every day, we learned that he was a hard worker and one of the best problem-solvers any of us had ever seen. We learned that he took being a captain seriously. We learned that he was an adequate engineer and a terrible communications officer. 

On away missions, we learned that he always took back-to-back watches. We observed that he held himself apart from the team, but that he would always offer a grin and a friendly question if anyone noticed. We realized that he worked hard to seem approachable, but there was something about him that remained complete and solitary and very much alone.

We learned that he took for granted how he looked in his dress uniform, and was always more interested in remembering diplomatic protocols and name pronunciations. We learned that for every time he came off as arrogant or conceited, there were other times when he was thoughtful and empathetic.

We learned that he hated his celebrity as Starfleet’s golden boy. He hated the press of reporters and groupies that greeted us at certain planets and starbases. When we were on shore leave, he ducked away from crowds. We tried to help him avoid the worst of it. We deflected the media attention, tried to tell the journalists and paparazzi that his ability to give good orders was mission critical in a way that his blue eyes were not. When we were asked for quotes about his eyes (something that happened irritatingly often), we told them that he had blue eyes, the clear blue typical of a fair-skinned, fair-haired Human, and his iris color was not unusual on Earth. (We didn’t tell them what we really believed, that it wasn’t the color that was unusual. It was the brightness that was startling and a little disquieting. His eyes were bright with keen intellect, with steadiness and courage, the kind of courage that knew the price of living, that was itself a form of defiance, of innocence and trust.)

We knew that he trusted us as much as himself. We knew he would do anything to protect the _Enterprise_ and her crew. We couldn't count the number of times we watched him launch himself, flinging his whole weight on a larger opponent. Nor could we count the number of times we watched him negotiate with only wit and desperation. Or the number of times we watched him _always_ sacrifice himself first. 

We realized that we would follow him anywhere.

*

And we did. 

We went with him on away missions, and we waited for him to return from those missions. We stood with Spock and McCoy when the away team materialized in Transporter Room 3, and he said, “Hey, guys. Missed me?” the way he always did.

“Yeah, we missed you,” McCoy grumbled, scanning him with a tricorder and studying the results with worried eyes.

We watched as Kirk sidestepped McCoy's hypospray with the ease of long practice, and then slapped the CMO on the back. “It’s good to be back,” he said, grinning at the rest of us. He said, “Good work, guys,” as he usually did, before heading off to clean up. 

We watched him go. He was trailing his fingers along the wall, listing a bit to the side. We knew he was injured; McCoy’s look had confirmed it. We also knew that he would wait until McCoy had dealt with the rest of the away team’s more serious injuries first. It was typical of him, typical of who he was.

We stood at attention as he passed, a measure of our respect for the youngest captain in Starfleet history. When we saluted, he nodded and smiled despite his exhaustion.

What we knew about him was this: James T. Kirk was — he _is_ — a terrible communications officer, an adequate engineer, a stowaway, a survivor, a genius fuck-up from the Midwest. He has the makings of a great, maybe legendary captain. 

He is our captain.

We are proud to be his crew. 

**END**

 

_You see, you don’t accept the crew; they were there first. They accept you. And when they do, you’ll know. They won’t beat drums, wave flags, or carry you off the drill field on their shoulders, but you’ll know. You see, your orders will appoint you to command. No orders, no letters, no insignia of rank can appoint you as a leader. The best leader is never more or less than his crew’s evaluation of him.  
—  Military Review, 1945, as quoted in Starfleet Annual, 2262_

 

 


	2. Notes

This story is a sort-of bookend to the first story I wrote in the ST-AOS fandom, [The Things You See and The Way You See Them](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1167538/chapters/2374765). It is a "stupid writing experiment" and a character study of Jim Kirk as a leader. It incubated for almost six months, and it would never have gotten done without the help and encouragement of my two wonderful betas: garryowen, who is my partner-in-blood-pacts, and emluv, who pretty much deserves author credit or at least a medal for all the ideas, editing, questions, and hand-holding that improved the story all along the way. I couldn't have written this experiment in first-person plural narration without either of them.

This story was deeply inspired by the book, _It's Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy_ by Captain D. Michael Abrashoff, former commander, USS _Benfold_. There are numerous references to Abrashoff's experiences and lessons learned in the fic, especially the description of Abrashoff's crew interviews — including his process, questions, and learnings — as well as his concept of how you build the "best damn ship" in the Navy.

The prologue and epilogue epigraphs are actual quotes from military/naval leadership college materials.

Mr Stevens, the canteen manager, is stolen from Eddie Izzard. Because it amused me, and also because if the [Death Star](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l27VyaJjXgY&feature=fvsr) can have a Mr Stevens, so can the _Enterprise_.

Lastly, this story reflects my real-life work, and some things I profoundly believe about the nature of leadership. It is a manifesto of sorts, on my ideas of leadership might apply in the ST-AOS universe. Which might be better explained by this:

When I started the story, I was inspired by several things:  
\- a desire to experiment with a rare narrative voice (first person plural, "we");  
\- the epigraphs, which I found on the web, when looking for something for a real-life work project;  
\- a lecture I attended about leadership that used a naval commander as an example and then referenced his book, which became a specific reference for the story;  
\- the Cupcake section of my first story [The Things You See and The Way You See Them](http://danahid.livejournal.com/10199.html), (which actually has a bit of that "we" thing going on);  
\- a comment I remember reading (but can't remember where — apologies for not giving credit where it's due) when STXI first came out, that real soldiers/sailors would have serious problems with the "jumped-up" way Kirk is given command of the _Enterprise_ at the end of STXI; and  
\- a burning desire to refute the persistent myth of Super Jim.

I've read so many stories about Jim with his genius intellect and his abilities to do every possible task perfectly and his incredible blue eyes and much as I love those stories (and I do), I don't believe that someone has to be perfect to be a legendary or even a good leader. I believe fundamentally that the very best leaders are normal people who have the courage to do extraordinary things, and the willingness to be accountable for leading others to do extraordinary things.

I do believe Jim is a genius, certainly a tactical genius. Pike told us so, and I can believe it based on what he says and how he acts in STXI and STID; it's canon for ST-AOS (and TOS). But I think Jim would be a crap communications officer, for example, even if he can speak many languages. I think his blue eyes are lovely, but their color is probably not that different from any other fair-haired, blue-eyed, human male's eyes. He's young and brash and sometimes stupid about things, and somehow, his crew decides over the course of their five year mission to remain his crew. They end up proud to be his crew. Something he does or says over the course of their mission, or something about the way he is, makes them decide that the Admiralty didn't just give him the _Enterprise_ as a publicity stunt. He deserves their loyalty.

That was the story I wanted to tell. I hope you enjoyed it.

 


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